Nantucket (Mass) to California The Gold Rush Exodus
- Author: Bill Principe
- SKU: 2010
- ISBN: 0897254503
- Our Price:
$12.95
-
Description:
By Bill Principe. 60pp., 5 1/2" X 8 1/2" booklet. 2001 #2010 $9.95
In 1850, Jethro C. Brock published a small booklet entitled “A List of Persons from Nantucket Now in California or on Their Way Thither”. The now rare booklet lists 650 Nantucket men and women who left for California for the Gold Rush before January 1, 1850.
With the Gold Rush, many left the east coast at a record pace either by land or by sea. Nantucket men, being no strangers to the sea, generally chose this method of travel. Nantucket’s population dropped by 560 between 1840 and 1850 which is nearly the same amount which left for California in 1849.
Bill Principe has taken the information contained in this booklet as well as an additional 14 names which appear in Brock’s earlier broadside or other sources and arranged all the names in alphabetical order, showing which ship the individual sailed on and on what page in the original booklet the individual appears. He has also prepared an alphabetical list of the 82 ships which Brock included in his booklet plus 2 additional ships in the September broadside. The list includes additional information about each ship as well.
Also included in this publication is an exact reprint of Brock’s 1850 booklet.
If you have an ancestor who was at one time in Nantucket but seemed to disappear, perhaps he caught the “fever” and headed west. This booklet may hold the answer.